As Hanne Nabintu Herland noted in an op-ed the other day which followed up on Malinowki’s, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre — in reply to concerns that the Norwegian educational system doesn’t do enough to cultivate the country’s best minds — said that there’s no need to do this, because — hey! — the best minds will cultivate themselves. While Malinkowski contrasts Norway unfavorably with Poland (a comparison that must, by the way, have shocked plenty of Norwegians, who tend to look down on Poles because in recent years tens of thousands of them have come to Norway to do hard labor that Norwegians aren’t interested in doing), Herland looks to Finland, noting that while the UN may say that Norway is the best country to live in (largely because oil income makes its GNP per inhabitant sky-high), the Financial Times recently accorded that honor to Finland. Herland hails Finnish schools and suggests that one reason why they’re widely considered Europe’s best is that “Finland couldn’t afford reforms” of the kind that cultural radicals engineered in Norwegian classrooms over the last half-century or so. Finnish schools, Herland points out, “don’t emphasize fun and games, but hard work, just as in the 1950s. … In Norway, the Finnish system would probably be called old-fashioned.” Herland makes exactly the same point Hanson does — that thanks to Norwegian oil wealth, “we have been able to afford to relax.” It’s no exaggeration, I think, to say that many Norwegians not only accept indolence, idleness, and mediocrity, but feel, at a very deep level, more at ease with the comforting conformity of averageness than with — say — the restless inventiveness of an Edison, the incomprehensible genius of an Einstein, or the imaginative brilliance of a Mozart.

But there’s another important piece to this puzzle. Norwegians aren’t just brought up to see their country as the world’s richest and best to live in; they also see it as the “peace nation.” You could put together a sizable anthology of inane texts on this subject by leading politicians, journalists, professors, authors, and other members of Norway’s lockstep cultural elite. One of them, the above-mentioned Gahr Støre, summed up the usual line of argument in a speech he gave at the Oslo Peace Center a couple of years ago. There are, he bragged, good reasons why Norway, of all places, became a “peace nation” — namely “the tradition of solidarity in the labor movement” and the fact that “social democracy is based on the idea of common responsibility for the common future.” The underlying point being that what matters in Norway is communal, not personal, responsibility, and the well-being of the group rather than the achievement of the individual. For the kinds of people who run Norway, the main thing about individual excellence is that it’s something to be punished through taxation in order to subsidize the inferior and thereby even things out. There’s more than a casual connection, accordingly, between Norway’s “peace nation” rap and its exaltation of mediocrity.

The soft, cuddly “peace nation” image of Norway came into a special kind of focus lately when it emerged that Oslo resident Mullah Krekar — the fanatical, child-torturing founder of the Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Islam — had given an interview to the Arabic-language al-Hiwar TV channel in which he praised Osama bin Laden and looked forward to a Muslim caliphate in Europe. The Krekar case has for years been the perfect demonstration of the Norwegian governing mentality. Krekar has repeatedly made it clear that he is a bloodthirsty jihadist who despises Western freedoms and cheers the murder of infidels; and repeatedly the Norwegian media have served up cozy profiles of him, depicting him as a charming, gregarious family man whose life in Oslo (where I’ve seen him on the streets myself) is made difficult by the waves of media attention that follow his occasional pro-jihad statements and by the intermittent efforts of a few troublemaking government officials to have him deported to either the U.S. or his homeland of Iraq. Of course, Norwegian courts have ruled that he can’t be deported to either country, because he might face the death penalty in those places, and the “peace nation” doesn’t want to have even a terrorist’s blood on its soft, pretty hands. Indeed, it is in the nature of the “peace nation” to care more about the life of a terrorist than about his victims, past or potential. The formula seems to be this: the more abominable the monster, the more virtuous Norway is for embracing him.

So it is that the routine response of the Norwegian cultural elite to this unapologetic warrior against the West is to portray him as a harmless victim. After Krekar’s remarks to al-Hiwar surfaced, for example, Norway’s biggest newspaper, VG, rushed a photographer over to his house to take yet another in a long line of pictures of Krekar and/or his wife whose express purpose is to win sympathy for them. In the accompanying article, Lars Akerhaug writes that “Mullah Krekar is talking about the tough times his family has gone through when the storms have been breaking most violently around him. But he still has a positive impression of Norwegians.” Akerhaug goes on to quote Krekar on Norway: it is “Europe’s butterfly,” a place of “peace, beauty, civilization, and culture. … Norwegians are a peaceful, cultivated, and open people.” When asking yourself what kind of people could give a Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama, all you need to know is that they are the kind of people who glow with pride when they hear a terrorist describe their country as a butterfly.

Anyway, it seems clear that all of this — the indifference (and even hostility) to individual achievement in the schoolroom and beyond, the preference for empty peace-and-love rhetoric over tough, intelligent realpolitik, the prioritization of social-democratic communalism over personal responsibility, the readiness to bow and scrape to bullying tyrants in the name of “peace,” and the pathetic eagerness to be seen by those bullying tyrants as a pretty little “butterfly” on the world stage — all this makes far more comprehensible the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to hand one of their medals to a man who has snubbed America’s democratic friends and eulogized its autocratic foes, who is all too eager to foist socialist solutions on a republic founded on individual liberty, and whose résumé, while light on real-world accomplishments, is heavy on high-minded yap about peace and dialogue. I suppose one can only be glad that the lepidoptera in Oslo don’t also pass out the prizes for chemistry, physics, and medicine.

46 Comments, 46 Threads

1.
John O'Neill

IT SHOULD NOT BE FORGOTTENT THAT NORWAY WAS ONE OF THE MAJOR COLLABORTORS WITH NAZI GERMANY AND SUPPORTED THEIR NAZI INVADERS TO THE HILT. WE HAVE A NORWEGIAN WORD IN OUR LEXICON THAT REFERS TO THOSE WHO BETRAY THEIR COUNTRY TO THE INVADER; I.E. QUISLING; VIDKUN QUISLING WAS THE LEADER OF THE PRO NAZI OCCUPATION GOVERNMENT IN 1940S NORWAY.

Great article but you left out ‘boring’ although that was implicit in all you said. Norway and Oslo in particular is about the most boring place on the planet and I speak as someone who has lived in or visited over 90 different countries so far and has visited Norway many many times. Helsinki compared to Oslo is alive wild and interesting in fact anywhere compared to Oslo is alive and interesting. So it is very fitting that these boring mollycoddled people from this boring country give their boring valueless Peace Prize to a complete empty suit qho has achieved absolutely NOTHING except to begin the destruction of the USA Barrack, you can call me HUSSEIN now I won, Soetero (now where is that name change document) Obama.

A very well done evisceration of the prize of disrepute. It actually reminds people how fortunate they are NOT to have been recipients.

Not to make a too fine point on the PC insanity which rules the UN genuflecting Norway elites, I am ever so grateful that my 2 over achieving offspring were NOT born in Norway. As luck would have it they were born and raised in the US before the Obama cabal took control.
After all, in a few years time (if their crew has anything to say about) the up and coming generation will be tarred and feathered for daring to succeed at the likes of Caltech and MIT.
Whither Europe goes so too will the US if Obama stays in power.

As well as ‘Peace Nation’, Quisling is also a Norwegian byword. It’s in Chambers Dictionary whereas the former has yet to make its inauspicious entry.

Definition? kwiz’ling, n. one who aids the enemy: a native puppet prime minister set up by an occupying foreign power. (Vikdun Quisling, who played that part in Norway during German occupation (1940-45.)

So is Krekar the new toy boy of these nouveaux-Quislings? The one set to destroy the native, soi-disant gadabout Nordic Eloi no dick’s by an unassuaged and unending influx of Muslim Morlock’s?

Remember the Koranic definition of ‘peace’ is when all the world has submitted to the yoke of Islam. When the globe is totally Dar-el Islam rather than Dar-el Harb. (Land of War). That’s ‘Religion of Peace’ for you.

Maybe those hardy Norsemen, (what a joke!), should be careful what they wish for or they’ll end up like a Monty Python Norwegian Blue. You know, the dead one. The one which despite frantic remonstration by the seller had joined the Celestial Choir’s in Parrot heaven?

And to think a Norwegian is running the show in Afghanistan. The one on TV insisting that Karzai is a stand up guy and that all is well. As they say, yeah, right!

Still for every action there is an equal counteraction. Europe is awakening and at last, realising that those hordes are not here to assimilate but disfigure the place. To remake it in their own image. To take over. We’re not happy and the cracks are showing.

The so called Right is in ascendancy and people like Geert Wilders, incidentally the second most popular politician in the Netherlands, is connecting with indigenous Europeans, sick to death of the pusillanimous attitudes of the Left who are selling us down the river to an Islamo/ Marxist cabal intent on destruction.

All is not yet lost. It ain’t over until it’s over and although the cavalry may have been a little emasculated right now by their Obamessiah they’re still there.

In a few years after the US has awakened from its happy clappy hope ‘n change narcolepsy sanity will return.

Either that or those guys with the sandwich boards were right all along and the world is, indeed doomed.

We know the Norwegian hatred for individual achievement is true because I don’t think anybody can rattle off all of the major Norwegian scientists, artists, inventors, or industrialists that have made any impact on the world for the past 30 years. They also spend next to nothing on defense relative to GDP and now that the Cold War is over they are even less inclined to take the military seriously. They may as well become the Switzerland of Northern Europe. I don’t really know why they feel the need to be in NATO, when they can join their neutral pals in Sweden living right next door to them. They are spoiled, lazy, ingrates and don’t mind seeing the United States carry the bulk of the military burden guaranteeing their pitiful little right to exist. But I wonder how “peaceful” they will be if Russia decides to re-assert itself in Europe. I’m sure Poland is feeling the heat of Russian restlessness, so I wonder how long it will be before Russia, once again, casts its eyes northward towards the Scandinavian countries (especially Finland) and the Baltic states. One more reason why NATO has outlived its usefulness. We really need to let the Europeans fend for themselves for a while. Once they are forced to defend themselves, I think they’ll have a rather different view of the world.

Norway was not “one of the major collaborators with Nazi Germany.” Maj Quisling was a Norwegian military traitor who took advantage of the pacific nature of the people and the strict gun control laws to seize all of the armories in the country and prevent the military there from arming themselves. In contrast, Denmark signed a non-aggression pact with Germany before the war started, Sweden stayed neutral, and Finland became a German ally.

The German invasion was something right out of Hogan’s Heroes, the first German forces arriving in Norway being a military band that landed in advance of the main forces rather than after the capture of the airport as had been planned. The German victory owed as much to the efforts of Norwegian traitors as it did to the weakness of the British, who lost an aircraft carrier during their efforts to help Norway.

The Norwegian underground was one of the most effective in Europe. They destroyed the German supplies of heavy water for their nuclear weapons effort, sabotaged U-boat bases, and with the help of the OSS, succeeded in preventing the retreat of German forces from the country after the Normandy Invasion. The Norwegian forces that escaped continued to fight the Germans after their country was occupied.

But it appears that the heirs of Maj Quisling have taken over that lovely and once-brave country rather than the heroes of Telemark.

I was in Norway in 2004. I went to the resistance museum in Oslo. It was an eye-opener. The National Socialists from Germany had some pretty horrific concentration camps for the Norwegians that resisted and were caught.

Norway resisted as best they could. They did get their gold to England along with their King. Their resistance kept National Socialist troops in Norway and away from the European and Russian fronts.

The National Socialists may have gotten ahold of the bomb before the US did but not for some brave Norwegians. We could have said good-bye London, Moscow, and New York City.

The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund amounts to $92,000 for each of Norway’s 4.7 million inhabitants. So you could say that a Norwegian family of four ownes about $360,000 in wealth just from that fund, which is invested in 8,000 companies around the world. That doesn’t count personal assets. By comparison, median net wealth of U.S. households was $58,000 as of 2002 (Census Bureau). The managers of this fund will not invest it in companies which produce weapons or in companies like Wal-Mart whose employment policies they dislike. They sold out their shares in a company which made sensors for the Israeli protective wall.

What kind of people would give the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama? Rich people who don’t feel at risk from dangers like Palestinian terrorists or nuclear weapons from Iraq, Iran, or North Korea. They haven’t had terrorists fly hijacked airliners into office buildings in Oslo. They haven’t had terrorists set off bombs on their public transportation as in London and Madrid. Why should they feel any sympathy for those who face such dangers?

While I’m sure the Norwegians disapprove of things like terrorists gunning down hundreds of hostages in Beslan or blowing up hundreds of tourists in Bali, I can’t help noticing that the actions they have taken to prevent such horrible crimes is zero. I don’t claim they approve of Hussein’s threat to “burn half of Israel with poison gas” or his invasion of Kewait or his oppression of his own people including the mass murder of the Kurds, I just claim they never did anything about it. That’s the kind of people who would give the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama: people who aren’t at risk nor feel any sympathy or extend any assistance to those who are.

Norway epitomizes the core of my two word solution to peace in the Middle East: give up. For those for whom peace at all costs is more precious than justice then one can always gain “peace” by acquiesing to the others’ demands in all things.

Sometimes I fear we in the US have reached the point where we are able to sustain enough of a level of general comfort for the majority at the expense of the minority such that the majority would rather follow the path of least resistance and appease away rather than jeopardize their individual continued comfort.

To all who wonder about what happened to concepts like Peace and Harmony in my country I can only warn coming Powers-To-Be NOT to relax in their sovereignty before they have defined themselves as nations!
Norway – by importing so many ‘refugees’ over such short a period of time – has managed to confuse ‘peace’ with careless destruction of its sovereign characteristics…with most of the local media afraid to – or not interested in – going after foreign types when behind the avalanche of crimes (related to drugs) or other offense!
Our brand of ‘harmony’ and ‘peace’ is nothing of the sort, but merely the slow degradation of a culture once proud to EXPLORE(Amundsen/Nansen), PIONEER(Birkeland’s fertilizer) or INVENT(Foyn’s harpoon)—now left to remember Norway’s former greatness before international bodies(EU,UN) realised that our oil riches might be put to use as a ‘lightning rod’ whenever bad colonial conscience had to be atoned–

Our schools nowadays naturally reflect the New Curriculum in which attitudinal behavior is replacing knowledge and fact-gathering!!

With sadness for a country now turned megalomaniacal and futuristically unprepared,

Johan Berger(retired English personnel at Teacher’s College in Alta(Norway)

Just because the Nobel awards have become meaningless (5 leftists stating their love for other leftists) does not mean I am going to disparage the entire country. The kind of people who hand out awards in this way should be obvious.

The bigger question is how can anyone in their right mind take the Nobel Prizes seriously? It has been handed out to some of the most foolish and/or malevolent characters in recent history.

one nice thing to say about Norway, a country of dhimmified servile Eloi who worship PC groupthink as a national religion – the girls and women are beautiful. Stop and stare gorgeous. That’s genetics though, Nature’s gift to the Norwegian people.

The Norwegians may have lots of oil, but they are rather short on brains. If you talk to them they usually give you a blank stare,or a one word answer. I don’t think they produce much of their own accord.

“As someone who has lived in Norway for over ten years…”
…I believe it’s time to repay the hospitality I’ve been shown.
And I want to thank my readers for their appreciations of this Nazi-collaborating, brainless, smug, arrogant, elitist, nihilist, subversive, pro-Islamic, left wingnut excuse for a nation.

A long time ago and far far away,while I was engaged in “….contract work…” I employed a Nowegian who epitimized the European professional soldier. A stalwart fellow, his men would follow him through Hell…he was an inspiration…
I am absolutely positive he would be ashamed of the Nobel Committee.

Yes he did. Get over it. President Obama is the Man. He has inherited such a mess. Look into the future. He has capture the world attention and most people do like and respect him. Rome was not built in a matter of months. Give him time and he will achieve great things.

Mr. Bawer: If you so truly despise my country, I strongly suggest that you get the f out of it. I see you fail to mention that the organization wich pays your bills, HRS, is funded by the norwegian state. So it seems you are happy to take our tax-money but spit on the state that feeds you.

“the kind of people who give Nobel Peace prize are the kind that beleive in hope.”

And rainbows, and unicorns, and Care Bears…..

Let’s not condemn an entire nation just because of the actions of five kook Leftists on a committee. Not even if they are there because a majority of Norwegian voters keep populating their parliament with kook leftists.

“the Norvegans are the people who have the highest ratio of GDP pro inhabitant on this planet”

Thanks entirely to North Sea oil- A GDP/capita anomaly like Kuwait or Brunei. You’re also overlooking Norway’s staggering tax burden- it’s not like its citizens actually get to enjoy their nominal wealth.
___________________

“Yes he did. Get over it. President Obama is the Man. He has inherited such a mess. Look into the future. He has capture the world attention and most people do like and respect him. Rome was not built in a matter of months. Give him time and he will achieve great things.”

Norwegians better hope the North Sea fields never run dry, because if (when) that happens, they’re screwed blue. “Indolence, idleness, and mediocrity” on this large a scale require equally large scale subsidization. People who take such pride in those qualities will never be able to return to the hardscrabble life of Norway pre North Sea oil strike.

It is kind of like the prize you get in a box of CrackerjacksMOe, Larry,,Curly, Shemp and Curly Joe were in charge this year. Instead of selecting a real winner, they thought that they’d screw with us and pick the least
likely person to get it as big joke on the world.

As a Norwegian i would really like to have some good arguments to defend my country with, but both the article by mr Bauer and most of the comments here really make some good points.
We do aspire to mediocrity, or less..
While the American dream is to start up as a poor man and ending up as a millionaire by hard work, the Norwegian dream is to get as much money from the welfare system as you can, preferably without doing anything to deserve it. The socialdemocratic mentality will destroy this country.

Speaking as more of a supporter of Obama than many seem to be here, I agree that awarding him a Nobel Peace Prize already debases the currency and does him no favors. He is answerable to his countrymen for his oath to protect and defend them, which may require war. Now he will inevitably be accused of conflicts of interest– either betraying his country to deserve an award prematurely bestowed, or besmirching the award with belligerence. If his opponents on the right, whose invective has been unremitting since the day he was inaugurated, can figure out a way to make both criticisms simultaneously, I don’t doubt that they will do so.

I`m a Norwegian. Never sen so much envy on display anywhere. Who would`nt sitt down and relax, don`t giva s**t about schol, who cares `bout the futchure if you hav no woris. chill out, the Stat will putt fod on your tabl, cloths on your fatt boddy and thers plenty of amerikan reallitishows on tv. No worries.. Who gives a s**t about working just to pay 35% tax, thers millions of billions on the pension fund, why work to pay for your own pension when you can get tit from the Stat? Yeh, we are Quislings the hole lot, who cares. Why bother with the norwegians or Norway? If it was`nt for those “socialist” ultranaive ballonheaded “statesmen” that beleive they are the only ones who can save the planet and mankind, end all the worlds famines, free us from powerty, end all wars, take care of every “refugee”, talk any terrorist into tears and turn him into a bearded Santa through their mantra “dialog”, this country would be left in peace. No one would ever dream of going here, lets PLEASE give the Peace prize back to Sweeden, and we could live our lives in peace. Gahr Støre is the latest product of the norwegian “sosialist” culture that has produces so many “statesmen” since WW2. Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, bla, bla, bla, and the norwegians are proud! What a guy! Sometimes I`m so ashamed of beeing a Norwegian it`s sickening. Our schools have been “reformed” through waves of sickening leftish liberalism, and by now our edicational system is on the edge of, if not already falling into, the abyss of kuddeling and cozyness. The schools mantra the last 30 years har been that no one can be less or more intelligent than average. So, as a consequense the system produces two kind of kids; the ones that think they are much more clever that they actially are, because their teacher could`nt tell them otherwise in fear of creating a looser, and the real loosers, the clever ones, who are bored by school because it was no real challange, and never learned that the only way to learn something hard it to work hard. High school is the same way. As a 16 year old, you are by law secured a place. Not by qualification, but by age alone. The clever ones goes through high school just as the went through the first 10 years, without any efford. Then everyone HAS to go to University. Finally you meet higher standards, and some of the more stupid kids failes and end up as bigger loosers than ever. Most guys comes through “soft” programs, and end up as frustrated, depressed, overeducated hairdressers or Rema1000 employees. The most worrying is without doupth the clever kids, who never had to make any efford to learn, and now faced with international standards just don`t know how and what to do. The few that succeeds, really has to be admiered. A scientist that succeeds in spite of the enormous bureaucraty really deserves a statue. They are freaks the system could`nt put down. Do they get any credit for their intelligence and stamnia? Nope. Better paid work? Nope. Higher status? Nope. The only kind of heroes that is “allowed” by the system is sports heroes. Aaah what endless joy if the Norwegian soccer team wins a mach! A few years back TV2 payd more than $200.000.000 to get the right to show all of norwegian soccer on tv. Jihaa! What happend to the tough people hardened by the harsh climate? ..who were the worlds nr.1 sailors, whalers, fishermen, miners, inventors, industrialists, engineers, farmers, sportsmen and women? The answer? We are still!! Norwegian industry is alive, DESPITE our rigorous tax system. Some freaks still fights to start a buisness, and some succeeds DESPITE the endless paperwork. These guys REALLY sould be admired. The system sees them as virus… finally, what you should`nt forget is the fact (even if our “statesmen” act as if the number was 10000 times higher) we are FEW. Just a handful of people. How many lazy people is there in the US? Yes, I know; my english su**s. I never had to make an efford learning it properly.